Beach Blanket Bingo!

1994 LA Music Awards – Myths & Legends By Jah Paul Jo

In 1994, Dread Zeppelin were nominated for an LA Music Award. I can’t remember what category, Best Outfits? I don’t know. They also asked us to present an award. Hey, cool. We can do that.

I’m excited because I’ve heard that Brian Wilson is going to present an award AND perform live. Wow. This is shortly after Brian had cleaned up his act, gotten off drugs and lost hundreds of pounds with the help of his new “guru,” Dr. Eugene Landy.

Landy’s methods had been questioned by the Wilson family, so he had attained quite a high degree of infamy by this time. He seemed to me a natural to connect with the fine Dread Zeppelin name… weight loss could easily be weaved into the saga (but not with Tortelvis’ blessing, natch). So I instructed all to be on the LOOK-OUT for Landy. If seen, corral him and bring him back to the dressing room. What a photo op!

Sure enough, one of our “handlers” spotted him and, after a short chase, brought him in. We were *ecstatic* to meet Dr. Landy and, after the shock of being greeted by an apparition of The King, I think he was a bit flattered that we would treat him with such star status. He was dressed in something that I would imagine Lionel Ritchie wearing while a member of The Commodores. It wasn’t all that dignified – but he’s the doctor!

So we got our Dr. Landy photo. Great!

Back to the audience just in time to see Brian Wilson. The band is Brian on keyboard, Don Was on bass, Greg Allman on guitar and drumming is Dallas Taylor of CSN&Y fame. All-Star line-up… this is going to be interesting.

Brian starts the opening bars of “California Girls” on the keys and the band looks delighted. The sound is sparce and you immediately notice that there are no harmony vocals – just Brian singing lead. Its OK, though, cause its neat just seeing Brian playing again and sounding reasonably well.

As the song began its second verse, Brian started to look agitated. He stopped playing keyboard but kept singing… and then, during a pause in the vocal, turned to Dallas Taylor on drums and shrieked (and I mean LOUD), “SLOW DOWN!!!”

I remember Greg Allman’s head slumping to his chest suppressing laughter and the audience being stunned. The older folks were sad that apparently Brian was not quite ready to perform again and the younger people, who had no idea who he was, were wondering why he was even on the stage in the first place.

*I think* the band started the whole song again (but I could be wrong because I, too, was stunned) and got through it without incident.

Other big stars at the event who fell victim to the Dread Zep photo op were Jackson Browne, Rodney Bingenheimer with Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles, Easy E and Posse of NWA (we couldn’t get very close to him for a variety of life-treatening reasons), Howard Kaylan of The Turtles and my favorite, Rhonda Shear of USA’s “Up All Night.”

Whatever our category was, we lost to Los Lobos. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, “And so it goes.”